Thursday, February 23, 2012

Tyrannosaurus Lynch

Late last year I read this fabulous article in The Guardian asking whether David Lynch had retired as a film director. It reads as an obituary to his career as a filmmaker, but not his creative endeavours. It's a piece that rattled about my brain as I wrote about two new Lynch releases at Trespass Magazine today. The piece in The Guardian notions that if Lynch, that madman of Americana, never made another film then, actually, that's a-okay what with the way Inland Empire from 2006 acts as not only a cruel and ugly mirror to the high gloss magnum opus, Mulholland Drive, but also as an appropriately matching bookend to Eraserhead, the film that started it all. Still, we now have Blu-ray editions of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (my second favourite Lynch film after Mulholland Drive) and Lost Highway. Read Trespass Magazine to see what I have to say about them.

Speaking of Twin Peaks, I found this video just the other week as I trawled YouTube for videos of The Golden Girls actresses winning their Emmys. Isn't it a treasure?!?

I also wanted to mention Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur, which is finally getting a (very limited) release in Australia after appearing across the festival circuit last year. It's got the British kitchen sink milieu down pat, but successfully avoids the suffocating miserabalism that makes films of this kind so deeply unpleasant and rough viewing. I've seen it twice now, and the second viewing was remarkably easy. The film has its problems, sure, but being able to sit and watch Olivia Colman give this performance is truly a gift. Anybody who has seen it will know what I mean when I say "the scene", but the scene is a truly devastating piece of cinema that must be experienced for the sheer ferocity of Colman's performance. Her line readings haunted me for months after seeing it at MIFF in August and they continue to to this very day. That she never got a foot in the door, nor even a smidgen of a look in during the awards season (even by the British segment for the most part) was perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the whole circus. How exactly actors and critics saw that performance and didn't think it deserved plaudits is actually quite troubling, which makes me believe they were just being lazy and didn't bother to watch it.

*sigh*

I know, Olivia. I know.

Tyrannosaur is out now exclusive to Cinema Nova here in Melbourne and I hope it shows up somewhere else around the country. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and Lost Highway are out now on Madman's "Director's Suite" label.

Disclaimer

Everything that is written on this webpage - Stale Popcorn and any tangents from it - is written by me, Glenn Dunks, unless otherwise stated. It is appreciated that if you wish to reproduce any of that you do so with an appropriate link (please do not copy it all because that gives your reader no reason to come by here and possibly increase my traffic).

If any pictures or music files are posted on Stale Popcorn that are owned by you and wish to be credited for or have removed please feel free to send me an email using one of the addresses at the top of the page. I will gladly oblige.